It makes complete sense that governments would want to retain an artificial sentiment of democracy through a “blended” sort of democracy, especially with the rise of international surveillance and accountability. For instance, the referendum in Chile only occurred in the first place because the government wanted a fake vote to please the international community, who was increasing pressure to add more elements of democracy to their assumingly non-democratic system. As for controlling the legal and non-legal aspects of the country, I was listening to a podcast earlier where they were talking about the same issues as the movie No in Paraguay, under Alfredo Stroessner, and it told the story of a women whose brother was murdered by the police, but they had no hope of getting justice because the government (the ones who murdered him in the first place) controlled the courts, so nothing would get done. It’s like the scene in No where the husband goes to an Argentinian general to try and get a solution to his wife’s disappearance, and he’s met with veiled hostility and an awareness not to trust the government, who disappeared her in the first place.
I think it’s really interesting how authoritarian regimes have shifted from the past to now; look at the regimes of World War II, particularly Hitler and Mussolini. They had stated control over every aspect of the country, but their tactics were to either convince the people that it was a gift to them that their nation had such a great leader (Hitler’s charisma earned him great support, and he framed his dictatorship as saving Germany) or to intimidate people into following through harsh measures and brute force (both, but that was Italy’s main task). There wasn’t even a majority seat-holding like in they have Nicaragua, because the regime was complete and total. I feel like it’s more similar to Venezuela, who replaced the National Legislative Assembly with his own, bans opposition parties from running against them, and terrorizes its citizens everyday.
annie 